“Now, amongst the fairy pas,” the word-of-mouth historian went on, “there are two places of particular…
- Date of account
- Published 1923
- Source
- Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand
- Reference
- Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand · selected passage 19
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
“Now, amongst the fairy pas,” the word-of-mouth historian went on, “there are two places of particular enchantment
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention only“Now, amongst the fairy _pas_,” the word-of-mouth historian went on, “there are two places of particular enchantment. One is that lofty palisade of a peak which you call Brazenose, and the level-topped hill above French Farm. Otoki--the Place of the Axe--is the name for Brazenose, but there is an ancient burying-ground there, upon the misty mountain immediately above the little Maori village of Onuku, on the beach side, which is called Otehore; the _Wahi-tapu_, or cemetery, makes it doubly sacred. This place and the height above French Farm were both called Otehore, and the people of the mists loved them well. On the small piece of level ground on that Otehore which stands above French Farm the fairy _hapu_ of those parts had their _pa_, and there they would gather at night for their fairy meetings, and gather by day also in the foggy weather when no Maori eye could see them; and then would be heard their sweet fairy songs, their _waiatas_, and the tunes they played upon their flutes, sounding faintly from the cloudy mountain.”
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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